Speed Dating our Clients in China

Relationships in China are as essential to business as they are in any other market and there is much already written on the subject of building relationships and the Chinese style of doing business.  While I see much written on the subject of how to approach potential business partners in China I have found little on the subject of evaluating these partners once the initial meetings have begun.  Most of what I see has to do more with not offending potential business partners through cultural gaffs than it does with how to know when one of these potential partners is wasting your time.

While I believe strong relationships are as important in China as they are anywhere else I have worked in the world I see more people here trying harder to make the wrong connections than anywhere else on Earth.  In China it seems we often ignore the objective information we are receiving as we try to enrich and enhance the subjective.  My in-house solution is speed-dating.

Speed Dating

I like the idea of speed dating, I never tried it but I hear it goes like this.  Participants spend a fixed amount of time with potential partners over the course of an evening in order to narrow down the field of prospects and concentrate their efforts with the people they felt offered them the best chance of success.  Brilliant.  The thought being that we can gain a great deal of information about a potential partner in a short period of time and use this information to focus on the most promising scenarios.

Speed Dating our Clients

In my office we use a similar system when we take on a new client.  In a contingency situation a new client is one who has met with us, given us the appropriate amount of information to decide whether we can work together and signed our fee agreement.  What comes next is our version of client speed dating.

We begin looking at the reaction speed of the new client, measuring their feedback - is it good, useful, market-correct? We  question them on their prerequisites in order to see if they really know what they are looking for or if they are just writing up an imaginary candidate they would like to see.

What is the point? (Everyone does this.)

The point is that we do this as quickly as we can to see if this is a prospective business partner and we do it as objectively as we can.  We use their actions to realize their intentions, not their words.  This is a real time saver and I am happy to share the technique with you here.  We actually use a simple spreadsheet to rank new client performance.

What I have found is that this is particularly useful with new consultants, it is a nice, clear way to measure client performance.  We have yet to look back with regret on a situation where we cut off a non-performing client.